The cold came first.
Not the cold of winter. Odin knew that cold. This was older. Deeper. The cold of a realm that had been dying long before the war, long before the Tribunal fell, long before anyone thought to mourn it.
He stood at the edge of the northern fracture, Gungnir in his hand, and looked out at what used to be Asgard.
The golden halls were gone. The rainbow bridge had shattered. The fields where the Einherjar trained were now a stretch of cracked white stone that bled thin light. But the cold remained. It seeped through the fracture like water through a broken dam, ancient and familiar, carrying memories Odin had tried to forget.
He had volunteered for this post.
Not because he wanted to. Because someone had to. The fractures in the north were spreading faster than Athena could map. The anchors were failing. The souls that passed through this sector had started to drift, confused, lost.
The other gods looked at the north and saw a wound.
